After getting familiar with the seller, and buying many things from him, I get Sony 90LP/60SP non-chip tapes (red packaging) at $6.00 each, and sometimes at $5.50 (when you buy more, like 10 pieces). Panasonic 90LP/60SP non-chip is about $5.50, and $5.00 if you buy more (like 10 pieces). These are the basic, beginners' tapes, but I have no problems with them, so far. In any case, most of my tapes are used only once for recording and playback a few times during editing and viewing.

All prices quoted are in Singapore Dollars. Tax included.

Steven: when you need tapes, maybe I can get a bunch of them and pass them to you.

Is it better for me to get the MX500 from Malaysia or Singapore ? Please give advice (Steven & Yow) !!
Has anyone got any still pictures taken from MX500 ? Please send some to me, cause I want to see if its really a 3 Mega Pixel quality ! thanks !!

But they are also grainy 3MP. If you print to 4R (6" x 4"), you'll probably not notice the grain, though. After a little touching up softening in Photoshop, I'll say that you'll probably end up with about 2MP equivalent in sharpness and details.

My Fuji S602Zoom is a real digital still cam with SuperCCD (whatever, blah blah) and I shoot at 3MP. I'll say that Fuji's SuperCCD is already inherently noisy, but the MX500 is still noisier.

On this topic of video vs still, in low lights, the still cam exposes longer (sometimes keeping the shutter open for up to 15 secs!) but the video cam can only have shutter of 1/25 sec at the lowest, so any lower light, it'll use digital gain, which is about the same as changing the ASA/ISO upwards, ie equivalent to using more sensitive film, which will inevitably be more grainy and noisy.

However, I don't own an MX500, I have merely downloaded a file from MX500 on the net (EXIF still intact, so it should be original file) and played around with it.

Why don't some MX500 users here send Eric some pictures!

About buying in Malaysia and Singapore, the diffrence in probably too small to make a trip. Last hear was sub RM5000, and in Singapore it's SGD 2300. That's about 2% difference at the most!

If you are living in Malaysia most of the time, and hardly go to Singapore, then you're better off buying in Malaysia.

Try going to Boeing Electronics in Sungai Wang, KL (oh, I'm assuming you're staying in KL / PJ!) and they can get you a good price. Then you can also build a relationship with them, so that you can get other stuff next time for cheaper.

If you get it in Singapore, you have to service it in Singapore. It's no joke & might not be worth the trouble - unless you're always going to Singapore.
If you send it down to Singapore for repair, I hope you have an agent that is a reliable techie capable person who can check the cam after it's repaired before sending it back to you in Malaysia.

Besides, I think the MX300 & MX350 may be better off for you, if you think you will be working in low lights i.e. evening light or even a room with a single florescent light, or perhaps a wedding banquet where they use dim yellow lights, which the MX500 is not good at (just too bad, what a waste!)

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : Are the low light/high resolution MX300 and MX350 still available? -->>>

Well, the MX300/350 is not a low-light performer, just better than the MX500. The resolution of the MX500 is certainly better then the MX300/350, at the rated 540 lines, max for MiniDV.

The 300 has been off the shelves for over a year in Singapore. Occasionally, you can still see the MX350 on the shelf of Harvey Norman (a large chain store) here. But Harvey Norman sells at almost RRP, which will be SGD3800 for the MX350 and SGD3300 for the MX500. You can still bargain a little for teh salesman to lower his own commision, but that's about limited to 10% to 15%.

What I meant was that the MX300 and MX350 requires less LUX than the MX500. I just mentioned that they were good low light performers because the other member mentioned, "I think the MX300 & MX350 may be better off for you, if you think you will be working in low lights i.e. evening light or even a room with a single florescent light, or perhaps a wedding banquet where they use dim yellow lights, which the MX500 is not good at (just too bad, what a waste!)"

Personally, I don't think the MX300 and MX350 are good either in low light conditions, say in shooting a wedding reception, with the lights turned down. There's always video light though. That'll help with cleaner close-up shooting. It's too bad you can't get the 1/25 manual shutter setting. That would help make a difference!

Every now and then a ghostly reflection of the lens fills my screen... never noticed it shooting but when I hooked up a monitor.

I realised that it is the UV filter reflecting the lens.

I thought that it might be due to the sequence on my MX300: Lens - Hood - UV filter. The gap might be exacerbating the possibility that this woudl occur. But there was no way to hook the Hood on once the UV filter was attached directly to the lens.